I don't recall when I learned of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, which spans the Kentucky-Tennessee border, but since that time, I've been interested in visiting. A while back I decided to make camping reservations and spend a weekend exploring the park. And with that weekend upon me, I drove to the park after work on Friday evening, arriving shortly before midnight. I quickly erected my tent and went to sleep amidst the unwavering sound of the July Flies above me and all around me. Through the night, I awoke several times. It's very hot and very humid here. When I awoke shortly before sunrise, I exited my tent to tend to some business and then returned to sleep another hour or so before finally getting up for good around 7:00 AM. After getting a little snack and securing my belongings, I hoped in the jeep and drove to the trailhead of my first planned hike for the day, which follows the Parker Mountain Trail to Buffalo Arch.
The trailhead is about an hour and fifteen minutes from my campground and consists mostly of gravel roads. Though I was camping in Tennessee, this trail takes me just across the border into Kentucky. The trailhead itself is nothing more than a wide pull-off above Rock Creek. This is a pretty remote area and while I did pass a few folks camping alongside the road on my way here, there is no one to be found anywhere near this trail. After checking my map, I head up a modest incline and into the woods.
I can tell that this trails isn't visited much by the brush that has started to overtake it in areas and the multiple face-fulls of spider webs that I get along the way. It's well marked though and pretty easy to follow. Along the way, I pass by numerous house-sized boulders and a number of water-carved caves. The trail dips into a couple of these briefly and the muddy and unstable conditions offer a little bit of a challenge, but I'm able to get past without incident.
As I reach what appears to be the top of the Cumberland Plateau, the trail flattens out for a good mile or two. It's at this point in time that I finally decide to pick up a stick and start waving it out in front of me to preemptively remove the spider webs with something other than my face. It's also during this time that I really start to get discouraged due to the humidity. It's nasty hot here and I'm sweating like a pig. I really hope the payoff is worth the discomfort.
Reaching a point near the end (according to my map), the trail starts back down hill a bit and cuts through some very thick rhododendrons for a spell. It's so thick in fact that it's almost dark through this area, even though the sun is far above me pounding my surroundings with sunlight. As I emerge from this thick cover and make my way around one final bend, I see it. There above me, is a massive natural arch. From the shape and general topology, it appears like that it was once a solid stone face that over time had a cave carved into and then finally as the back of the cave was carved away, a gigantic natural arch was left. Though the geology is much different, the shape and scale remind me a bit of the Double O Arch in the Devil's Garden section of Arches National Park in Utah. The natural wonder before me is as breathtaking as most in that famous park, though this one is much less known. With a clear path to the top, I consider climbing up to the to, but the humidity here is just beating me down and I decide to turn back and head for the jeep.
The return trip is pretty uneventful, other than to note along the entirety of this 5.4 mile trail, I didn't see another soul. Luckily very few of the spiders had time to rebuild their webs before my return trip and I left with much less spider web silk in my face. The payoff at the end was definitely worth the hike, but this heat and humidity is making me reconsider the rest of my plans for the weekend.
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